In this article we develop a test to determine whether a sextic
polynomial that is irreducible over $\mathbb{Q}$ has Galois group isomorphic
to the alternating group $A_4$. This test does not involve the
computation of resolvents, and we use this test to construct several
infinite families of such polynomials.

We give an explicit recipe for the determination of the images
associated to the Galois action on $p$-torsion points of elliptic
curves. We present a table listing the image for all the elliptic
curves defined over $\QQ$ without complex multiplication with
conductor less than 200 and for each prime number~$p$.

We examine which representations of the absolute Galois group of a
field of finite characteristic with image over a finite field of the
same characteristic may be constructed by the Galois group's action on
the division points of an appropriate Drinfeld module.